Sempringham Priory

click photo to enlarge

Anyone looking at today's main photograph who saw the preceding blog post will be thinking, "OK, I see St Andrew's church, but where's the priory?" The answer is, it's under the long, regular shaped patch of uncultivated land in the middle foreground.

Like many medieval priories, abbeys, and monasteries, the building erected by St Gilbert and his followers that was the birthplace of the Gilbertines, the only monastic order to be founded in Britain, was abandonded in 1538 on the orders of Henry VIII. The Dissolution of the Monasteries as this act of vandalism was known resulted in the disappearance of many fine buildings. Others became ruins that later generations and their poets and painters found romantic. Quite a few ended up converted into rich men's houses. Some were reduced in size with an aisle left to be converted into a parish church. Local examples of the latter include South Kyme church and Croyland Abbey at Crowland.

At Sempringham the Clinton family bought the Priory and had the great building taken down. A hall was built on the site, probably using the stone. This had a shorter life than the ecclesiastical building that it replaced, and all that remains today of both buildings are foundations below ground and some surface rubble. A well associated with the Priory can be seen in the corner of the churchyard, and the outline of the canons' and nuns' (the Gilbertines uniquely admitted men and women) fishponds can be seen by a small stream. As we walked across the field we noticed that the ploughman had thrown a few large stones, scored by the plough, onto the track, something that many generations of ploughmen must have done as they kept turning up evidence of the great buildings below the soil's surface.

The main photograph was taken towards the end of our walk as we passed the church and Priory site at a distance. Earlier in the day we'd walked on a path nearer St Andrew's. It was then that I took the smaller photograph from a viewpoint where I took a similar shot a few years ago.

For more of my photographs of Sempringham church and its long-gone Priory see here and here for a fine old door, and here for a similar view to the smaller one above.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking back No. 1

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Nostalgia isn't what it used to be - it's much worse!

Two of the principal culprits for the current obsession with looking over our shoulders at the past are multi-channel television and the internet. In theory the more TV channels you have, the more choice you have, and the better quality viewing you experience. In practice the expanded air time is filled with repeats of recent programmes or re-runs of ancient ones, because it costs so much less. The internet, via the likes of YouTube and fan sites, enable the nostalgic to indulge the most obscure tastes in music, comedy or drama. You like Bagpuss - there he is, Mouseorgan and all. The Goon Show - easy to find. Obscure and not-so-obscure 1960s rock groups abound, and on the back of this new exposure polish their Zimmer frames and hit the road again. Not so long deceased pop groups are revived after ever shorter periods out of the public eye - was it only 10 years ago that the Spice Girls and Take That were assaulting our ears with their vacuous ditties, and why are they doing it again? Oh yes, the money!

There is an upside to the ready availability of the past. It means you can find a better alternative to today's offerings! A while ago, when the evening's TV offered little but reality twaddle, I discovered the Pogues' excellent version of the Ewan MacColl song, "Dirty Old Town" on YouTube - a Salford man's piece from 1956, covered by an Irish band in 1985, and introduced to me in 2007! But this recycling of the past also means that the current producers of popular culture don't have to try as hard. If pop songs and TV shows are no longer the disposable fodder that we once thought them to be, then there's no need to make as much new stuff, and it doesn't have to be as good - because it can easily be leavened with sprinklings of yesteryear's output.

All of which leads me to this photograph that I took at the end of September. I was looking back through the images that I took during my absence from blogging and this photograph of St Andrew's church at Sempringham, Lincolnshire, caught my eye. This building is the only above-ground remains of Sempringham Priory, the monastery where, around 1130, St Gilbert started the sole English-founded monastic order, the Gilbertines. The order was unique in admitting both men and women, and, far from ensuring its popularity, this fact may have accounted for its relatively poor acceptance!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

800 year old craftsmanship

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Did the craftsmen who made this door in the early 1200s think about how long it would last? Almost certainly. It is constructed of thick oak planks from a tree hundreds of years old when it was felled, and the size of these is dictated not by lack of skill but by concerns about strength and durability. Overlaying the door is a marvellous scheme of metalwork based on bosses and strips embellished with scrolls. These might look like surface decoration, but in fact they are the craftsmen's elaboration of components essential to the structural integrity and construction of the door - nails, hinges, latches, etc.

Did these people imagine it would still be in use eight hundred years or so after they put it on its hinges? Probably not. Whilst some medieval minds did have a grasp of the sweep of history, workmen such as these probably had a much shorter-term focus. However, they also had their eyes on eternity, and one can't help but feel that this, as much as more temporal concerns, were what led them to expend such effort on the metalwork. The door truly is conceived as an entry to the kingdom of God.

This door can be found at the church of St Andrew (also known as Sempringham Priory), at Sempringham, Lincolnshire. In this small rural settlement the Gilbertine Order was founded. The Gilbertines were the only monastic order to originate in Britain, and uniquely, they embraced both men and women in their establishment. This probably accounts for their limited appeal at the time! The church dates principally from the 1100s and later, but pieces of Anglo-Saxon interlace sculpture suggest an earlier building may have existed.

I decided to photograph a detail of this door, because often a part is more expressive than the whole. It also allows the pitted metal, scrollwork details and the age-ravaged and patched woodwork to be better seen. I moved the door to give a raking light that emphasises these details, and I hope my resulting shot represents, quite well, the character of this timeworn door.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Landscape with church

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When I was a teenager I remember reading a book by the Dutch-American professor of history at Cornell University, Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882-1944). A prolific author, he specialized in writing books for younger people about history and the arts. Speaking of churches in the English landscape he noted that they fitted into it so well, better than was the case elsewhere. And it's certainly true, I think, that our churches do embellish the countryside and only rarely look like interlopers. Often it's the surrounding  trees of the churchyard that makes the church nestle into its village or fields. Frequently its the weathered native stone that seems right for both the building and  the location. And even where the church stands up tall and proud, clearly seen, the vertical accent that it adds to the view invariable looks complementary rather than dissonant. English painters long recognised this, and the likes of Constable, Turner, Cotman, and many others, were careful to include churches in their landscapes.

Today's photograph shows a distant prospect of the church of St Andrew at Sempringham, Lincolnshire. Standing some way from the nearest houses, out in the fields, it made a fine sight as we passed by on a recent walk. Parts of it date from the twelfth century, but fourteenth, fifteenth and nineteenth century additions comprise the rest. It wasn't always a solitary building. Until the sixteenth century a fine priory stood nearby but Henry VIII did for that as he did for so many, and today it must be enjoyed in splendid and picturesque isolation, the perfect subject for a passing photographer.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 80mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old church doors

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Today's photograph is another of my recently scanned slides from 1986. It shows the remarkable south door of the church of St Helen at Stillingfleet, East Yorkshire. The semi-circular headed doorway in which it sits dates from c.1160. It has the characteristic ornament of chevron, beakhead, scallop etc. that is frequently found in Late Norman architecture. The door itself is thought to be contemporary with this period. Even though it has suffered the ravages of time - see the inserted pieces at the bottom replacing rotted wood - and, despite some of the ironwork missing, what is left surely cannot be from a later period.

The first thing that catches the eye is the very Nordic looking boat with its great steering oar/rudder. At the top left are two figures, and a further one can be seen at top right. The big hinges have large "C" shaped embellishments with dragon-like heads that bring to mind the sort of head one sees in stone on Norman doorways and in illustrations on illuminated manuscripts. The single foliate boss was probably one of two, three or more. Then there is the band of interlaced metal that helps to tie the boards of the door together. It looks like the hinges may have had a lattice-work of metal inside the "C" shapes. Who knows what else there was? When I took my photograph in 1986 the old door was still hanging in its original position and fulfilling its purpose as the main door connecting the outside and inside of the church. The last time I visited Stillingfleet, several years ago a new door was in its place and the ancient door had been moved inside to preserve it. It is a remarkable survivor.

The smaller photograph shows the north door of the church at Swineshead, Lincolnshire, taken on my recent visit. This is also the only door ever to have hung in its doorway. The reticulated tracery at the top of the door shows that it is contemporary with the architecture around it. Like many larger church doors it has a smaller door embedded within it. The large door would have been opened on ceremonial occasions with the smaller door serving everyday use and helping to minimise the effects of the cold north wind.

Somewhere in my collection of slides I have photographs of other old church doors including the fine example at Skipwith, also in East Yorkshire. Other Lincolnshire examples I've posted in this blog include the door at St Andrew, Sempringham (here and here) and the door at Pickworth.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Olympus OM1n
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm
F No: N/A
Shutter Speed: N/A
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  N/A
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Wheat, wires and Large Whites

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Over the summer I've gradually got the impression that this year is a good one for butterflies. So, I did a bit of online research and ended up at the website of Butterfly Conservation. Here I read this by their Surveys Manager, Richard Fox: "The picture for native British butterflies remains mixed. Numbers appear to be up on the previous two summers, which were extremely wet and dire for butterflies. This summer has been better so far, in spite of the recent showers. If the wet summers had continued some endangered species such as the Heath Fritillary were vulnerable to extinction. The good news is the Heath Fritillary appears to have rallied and is having a good year. But numbers overall are still well down on a decade ago." So it seems that 2009 is a better year relatively speaking.

As I write my lavender is besieged by Large Whites, Painted Ladies, Peacocks, Common Walls and Small Tortoiseshells. The Painted Ladies have been particularly noticeable this year, but I was amazed to read that this migratory species may be represented by 1 billion specimens in the UK at the moment! The other species that have been much more numerous are the Small and Large Whites. Our cabbages have been receiving their eggs (soon to be caterpillars) despite us offering the compensating attractions of buddleia and lavender.

On a visit to Sempringham church (click link then scroll down for links) the other day I noticed an opportunity to add to my collection of images of tractor tracks (click link then scroll down for links). The additional interest offered by these particular tracks, in a field of very ripe wheat, was the telegraph pole and wires that stretched across the sky. As I stood, considering my shot, listening to the crackle of the ripe seed heads, I noticed Large White butterflies crossing the field. I quickly composed this shot that includes one of them on the right, hoping that it was sufficiently near to be recognisable for what it was.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Battered but not broken

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The climate of the British Isles is classified as "temperate". The summers don't usually get too hot, the winters are never that cold, and rain is fairly regular. Snow doesn't fall as often as children would like, and frost is a winter regular but is usually not too harsh. One of the effects of weather with these characteristics is that ancient buildings slowly crumble unless serious efforts are made to conserve them. Freeze-thaw, rain (including the acid variety), wind and general damp take their toll on mortar joints, roof coverings, bricks, stone and foundations. Metal rusts easily, and wood rots.

It's salutary to compare the Roman remains of Britain with those of the drier, warmer Mediterranean countries. Hadrian's Wall that crosses Northern England is a visible structure of clearly cut stones, but details, sculpture, lettering etc are difficult to find, and the best examples are those that received the protection of being buried for centuries. There is no remaining, standing, Roman triumphal arch in Britain, yet beautifully detailed examples can be found in Southern France, Italy and elsewhere.

The same is true of medieval work. Italian buildings of the thirteenth century look fresher, and have more detail, than those of the same date in Britain.With all this in mind, many people are surprised to find that original wood and ironwork on the exterior of medieval buildings can still be found in this islands. Today's image, the south door of c.1250AD on the church of St Andrew, Sempringham, Lincolnshire, is a subject that I've photographed and written about before here. I had the opportunity to capture it again yesterday, and this time I included the handle of the door. The thumb lever has been worn extremely thin over the centuries, yet it still, like the door itself, performs its useful task perfectly. In fairness, at the end of the Victorian period a porch was built over the south door, so for just over a century the metal and wood has been protected from the elements. However, it is a tribute to the skill of the original crafstmen and to the reverence for this aged artefact that has existed down the ages, that in Britain's climate it is still there at all!

My recent visit to see the door gleaned one fact that is at variance with my original description of its construction: apparently the wood is "fir" (yew perhaps?) and not oak.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Views with spires - take two

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For quite a while my blog statistics have shown a photograph that I posted in May 2011 called "Views with spires" as the one that receives most hits each month. I often try to work out why such things happen because, on the whole, the most frequently viewed post in a particular month is one published early in that same month. However, for reasons that are usually unfathomable, posts reasonably frequently depart from this pattern. Sometimes it's because I can see a particular website has referenced it and readers have looked at a link to it. But mostly I simply can't account for it. Why, I often wonder, is "Tree shadows and architectural drawings" my blog post with by far the most hits, fifty percent more than the second most visited? Who knows? It certainly can't be down to the quality of the image!

"Views with spires", to return to the current favourite, does I suppose, describe a subject that appeals to those of a traditional and Romantic mindset, and that title may in fact explain its popularity. Today's photograph of the church of St Denys at Aswarby, Lincolnshire, is another photograph on the same theme. More than that, it shares compositional similarities, with the road curving away to the prominent church tower with its tall spire. When I look through my landscapes I find that I frequently use church spires as strong compositional elements. And why not? Is there anything to beat the strong vertical accent of a medieval tower and spire set against the flat or rolling English countryside? Lincolnshire abounds with convenient examples. Churches such as Sempringham, Gosberton and Donington grab the eye and grace any photograph in which they appear, even if they are shrouded in mist or fog, as is Swineshead in this winter photograph.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On